By Jeff Mason, Steve Holland

TEMPE, Arizona (Reuters) -President Joe Biden launched a wide-ranging attack on Republican Donald Trump on Thursday, warning that his predecessor is a threat to American democracy and drawing a sharp distinction between himself and his likely 2024 election opponent.

To make his most extensive critique of Trump this year, Biden, a Democrat, chose an event to honor the late Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, a former presidential candidate, fighter pilot and Vietnam prisoner of war who Trump had denounced as “not a war hero.”

“There is something dangerous happening in America,” Biden said, detailing Trump threats against U.S. officials.

In a speech at the Tempe Center for the Arts in Arizona, a likely battleground state in 2024, Biden noted that Trump had suggested in recent weeks that the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff deserves to be killed and the Department of Justice should be defunded.

Biden also recalled remarks that Trump reportedly made after he abandoned a plan to visit an American military cemetery outside of Paris in 2018. The Atlantic reported at the time that Trump had called the war dead “suckers” and “losers,” comments that Trump denied.

“Is John a sucker?” Biden said of McCain, then posed the same question about his son, Beau Biden, who, like McCain, died of brain cancer, which Biden believes his son contracted from military service near an Iraqi burn pit.

Trump’s official campaign social media account on Thursday posted a Washington Examiner story disputing the Atlantic reporting.

Biden drew a sharp contrast between his own beliefs and Trump’s, who has said he considered himself above the U.S. Constitution, the founding documents that lay out a system of checks and balances.

“I believe very strongly that the defining feature of our democracy is our Constitution,” the president said. “I believe in free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power.”

Asked about Biden’s speech, Trump’s campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, said, “the radical Left Democrats, now led by Crooked Joe Biden, are the greatest threat to democracy the United States of America has ever faced.”

Biden said he does not think all Republicans ascribe to the “MAGA” agenda, a reference to Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan. But he said, “there is no question that today’s Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA Republican extremists.”

Biden’s message is likely to be repeated often in a campaign race dominated by the Democratic incumbent and the Republican former president. It comes days before a likely government shutdown, a situation forced by Republicans loyal to Trump in the House of Representatives.

Biden’s pursuit of a second four-year term comes amid concerns about his advanced age – he will turn 81 in November – and economic worries in the U.S.

He has stepped up his warnings about the potential threat to democracy posed by Trump as exemplified by the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump faces multiple indictments, including for his role in the deadly Jan. 6 attack.

Biden announced funding from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan to build the McCain Library in partnership with the McCain Institute and Arizona State University.

“We’d argue like two brothers … then we’d go to lunch together,” said Biden, who visited a memorial to McCain in Hanoi earlier this month.

Biden’s speech followed the second 2024 Republican presidential debate held on Wednesday in California, which often devolved into cacophony, petty fights and bizarre comments by the seven candidates.

Trump, who again skipped the debate, was labeled “missing in action” by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, while former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie mocked him as “Donald Duck.”

Trump instead gave a speech in Detroit to autoworkers, where he attacked Biden’s support for electric vehicles.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by Michael Perry, Heather Timmons, Nick Zieminski and Jonathan Oatis)

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York appeals court on Thursday refused to delay Donald Trump’s scheduled Oct. 2 civil fraud trial, after the former U.S. president accused the trial judge of wrongly refusing to throw out most of the case.

In a brief order, a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division, a mid-level appeals court in Manhattan, denied Trump’s motion to postpone the trial.

It also lifted a Sept. 14 order by Justice David Friedman to put the trial on hold while it considered Trump’s motion. Friedman was part of Thursday’s panel.

The panel ruled two days after state court Justice Arthur Engoron found that Trump and his family business persistently and fraudulently overvalued his assets and net worth in order to obtain better terms on loans and insurance.

Trump had been sued in September 2022 by state Attorney General Letitia James, who accused him, his adult sons, the Trump Organization and others of “staggering fraud” in how they valued properties.

James is seeking at least $250 million in penalties, a ban against Trump and his sons Donald Jr and Eric from running businesses in New York, and a five-year commercial real estate ban against Trump and the Trump Organization.

Lawyers for Trump and the other defendants were not immediately available for comment. James’ office had no immediate comment.

The case is unrelated to the four criminal indictments that Trump faces, including for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all, and cast litigation against him as part of a politically-motivated, Democratic witch hunt as he seeks a return to the White House. James is a Democrat.

Despite his legal woes, Trump holds a commanding lead for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

WITNESS LISTS

Trump sued Engoron on Sept. 14, seeking to delay the trial and accusing him of ignoring a June ruling from the appeals court that, according to Trump, required gutting James’ case because many of her claims were too old.

Engoron’s decision on Tuesday showed that he believed the appeals court ruling had little effect on James’ case.

The judge said the defendants were living in “a fantasy world, not the real world,” as they made up valuations for properties including Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound in Florida and Trump Tower penthouse in Manhattan.

Engoron found “conclusive evidence” that Trump had overstated his fortune by as much as $2.2 billion.

He also ordered the cancellation of certificates that let some of Trump’s businesses operate.

This could force Trump to cede control to a receiver of properties including Manhattan’s Trump Tower, a Wall Street office building, golf courses and his family estate in suburban Westchester County, New York.

Late on Wednesday night, the attorney general’s office and defense lawyers disclosed lists of witnesses, potentially numbering well over 100, who may be called to testify.

Donald Trump and his adult sons appear on both lists, as do former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg and controller Jeffrey McConney.

The attorney general’s list also includes Trump’s onetime personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who has turned against his former boss, and Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, who the appeals court dismissed as a defendant in June.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Bill Berkrot)

By Moira Warburton and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Democratic-led U.S. Senate forged ahead on Thursday with a bipartisan stopgap funding bill aimed at averting a fourth partial government shutdown in a decade, while the House began voting on partisan Republican spending bills with no chance of becoming law.

The divergent paths of the two chambers increased the odds that federal agencies will run out of money on Sunday, furloughing hundreds of thousands of federal workers and halting a wide range of services from economic data releases to nutrition benefits.

The House of Representatives passed three of four bills funding parts of the government, though the partisan bills would not alone prevent a shutdown, even if they could overcome strong opposition from Senate Democrats and become law.

The Senate earlier in the day had voted 76-22 to open debate on a stopgap bill known as a continuing resolution, or CR, which would extend federal spending until Nov. 17, and authorize roughly $6 billion each for domestic disaster response funding and aid to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia.

The Senate measure has already been rejected by Republicans, who control the House.

House Republicans, led by a small faction of hardline conservatives in the chamber they control by a 221-212 margin, have rejected spending levels for fiscal year 2024 set in a deal Speaker Kevin McCarthy negotiated with Biden in May.

The agreement included $1.59 trillion in discretionary spending in fiscal 2024. House Republicans are demanding another $120 billion in cuts, plus tougher legislation that would stop the flow of immigrants at the U.S. southern border with Mexico.

The funding fight focuses on a relatively small slice of the $6.4 trillion U.S. budget for this fiscal year. Lawmakers are not considering cuts to popular benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

McCarthy is facing intense pressure from his caucus to cut spending and achieve other conservative priorities. Several hardliners have threatened to oust him from his leadership role if he passes a spending bill that requires any Democratic votes to pass.

The House defeated a bill on agriculture funding by a 237-191 margin. Twenty-seven of McCarthy’s Republicans rejected it, mostly moderates in competitive districts who were worried about steep cuts to funding, as well as a provision limiting access to abortion medication.

Former President Donald Trump has taken to social media to push his congressional allies toward a shutdown.

McCarthy, for his part, suggested on Thursday that a shutdown could be avoided if Senate Democrats agreed to address border issues in their stopgap measure.

“I talked this morning to some Democratic senators over there that are more aligned with what we want to do. They want to do something about the border,” McCarthy told reporters in the U.S. Capitol.

“We’re trying to work to see, could we put some border provisions in that current Senate bill that would actually make things a lot better,” he said.

The House Freedom Caucus, home to the hardliners forcing McCarthy’s hand, in an open letter to him on Thursday demanded a timeline for passing the seven remaining appropriations bills and a plan to further reduce the top-line discretionary spending figure, among other questions.

“No Member of Congress can or should be expected to consider supporting a stop-gap funding measure without answers to these reasonable questions,” the letter, led by the group’s chair, Republican Representative Scott Perry, read.

‘ONE OPTION TO AVOID A SHUTDOWN’

The Senate measure has passed two procedural hurdles this week with strong bipartisan support.

“Congress has only one option – one option – to avoid a shutdown: bipartisanship,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Thursday. “With bipartisanship, we can responsibly fund the government and avoid the sharp and unnecessary pain for the American people and the economy that a shutdown will bring.”

Credit agencies have warned that brinkmanship and political polarization are harming the U.S. financial outlook. Moody’s, the last major ratings agency to rate the U.S. government “Aaa” with a stable outlook, said on Monday that a shutdown would harm the country’s credit rating.

Fitch, another major ratings agency, already downgraded the U.S. government to “AA+” after Congress flirted with defaulting on the nation’s debt earlier this year.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton and David Morgan, additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Jeff Mason; Editing by Scott Malone, Alistair Bell and Jonathan Oatis)

By Moira Warburton and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Democratic-led U.S. Senate forged ahead on Thursday with a bipartisan stopgap funding bill aimed at averting a fourth partial government shutdown in a decade, while the House began voting on partisan Republican spending bills with no chance of becoming law.

The divergent paths of the two chambers increased the odds that federal agencies will run out of money on Sunday, furloughing hundreds of thousands of federal workers and halting a wide range of services from economic data releases to nutrition benefits.

The House of Representatives passed three of four bills funding parts of the government, though the partisan bills would not alone prevent a shutdown, even if they could overcome strong opposition from Senate Democrats and become law.

The Senate earlier in the day had voted 76-22 to open debate on a stopgap bill known as a continuing resolution, or CR, which would extend federal spending until Nov. 17, and authorize roughly $6 billion each for domestic disaster response funding and aid to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia.

The Senate measure has already been rejected by Republicans, who control the House.

House Republicans, led by a small faction of hardline conservatives in the chamber they control by a 221-212 margin, have rejected spending levels for fiscal year 2024 set in a deal Speaker Kevin McCarthy negotiated with Biden in May.

The agreement included $1.59 trillion in discretionary spending in fiscal 2024. House Republicans are demanding another $120 billion in cuts, plus tougher legislation that would stop the flow of immigrants at the U.S. southern border with Mexico.

The funding fight focuses on a relatively small slice of the $6.4 trillion U.S. budget for this fiscal year. Lawmakers are not considering cuts to popular benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

McCarthy is facing intense pressure from his caucus to cut spending and achieve other conservative priorities. Several hardliners have threatened to oust him from his leadership role if he passes a spending bill that requires any Democratic votes to pass.

The House defeated a bill on agriculture funding by a 237-191 margin. Twenty-seven of McCarthy’s Republicans rejected it, mostly moderates in competitive districts who were worried about steep cuts to funding, as well as a provision limiting access to abortion medication.

Former President Donald Trump has taken to social media to push his congressional allies toward a shutdown.

McCarthy, for his part, suggested on Thursday that a shutdown could be avoided if Senate Democrats agreed to address border issues in their stopgap measure.

“I talked this morning to some Democratic senators over there that are more aligned with what we want to do. They want to do something about the border,” McCarthy told reporters in the U.S. Capitol.

“We’re trying to work to see, could we put some border provisions in that current Senate bill that would actually make things a lot better,” he said.

The House Freedom Caucus, home to the hardliners forcing McCarthy’s hand, in an open letter to him on Thursday demanded a timeline for passing the seven remaining appropriations bills and a plan to further reduce the top-line discretionary spending figure, among other questions.

“No Member of Congress can or should be expected to consider supporting a stop-gap funding measure without answers to these reasonable questions,” the letter, led by the group’s chair, Republican Representative Scott Perry, read.

‘ONE OPTION TO AVOID A SHUTDOWN’

The Senate measure has passed two procedural hurdles this week with strong bipartisan support.

“Congress has only one option – one option – to avoid a shutdown: bipartisanship,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Thursday. “With bipartisanship, we can responsibly fund the government and avoid the sharp and unnecessary pain for the American people and the economy that a shutdown will bring.”

Credit agencies have warned that brinkmanship and political polarization are harming the U.S. financial outlook. Moody’s, the last major ratings agency to rate the U.S. government “Aaa” with a stable outlook, said on Monday that a shutdown would harm the country’s credit rating.

Fitch, another major ratings agency, already downgraded the U.S. government to “AA+” after Congress flirted with defaulting on the nation’s debt earlier this year.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton and David Morgan, additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Jeff Mason; Editing by Scott Malone, Alistair Bell and Jonathan Oatis)

By Moira Warburton and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Democratic-led U.S. Senate forged ahead on Thursday with a bipartisan stopgap funding bill aimed at averting a fourth partial government shutdown in a decade, while the House began voting on partisan Republican spending bills with no chance of becoming law.

The divergent paths of the two chambers increased the odds that federal agencies will run out of money on Sunday, furloughing hundreds of thousands of federal workers and halting a wide range of services from economic data releases to nutrition benefits.

The House of Representatives passed three of four bills funding parts of the government, though the partisan bills would not alone prevent a shutdown, even if they could overcome strong opposition from Senate Democrats and become law.

The Senate earlier in the day had voted 76-22 to open debate on a stopgap bill known as a continuing resolution, or CR, which would extend federal spending until Nov. 17, and authorize roughly $6 billion each for domestic disaster response funding and aid to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia.

The Senate measure has already been rejected by Republicans, who control the House.

House Republicans, led by a small faction of hardline conservatives in the chamber they control by a 221-212 margin, have rejected spending levels for fiscal year 2024 set in a deal Speaker Kevin McCarthy negotiated with Biden in May.

The agreement included $1.59 trillion in discretionary spending in fiscal 2024. House Republicans are demanding another $120 billion in cuts, plus tougher legislation that would stop the flow of immigrants at the U.S. southern border with Mexico.

The funding fight focuses on a relatively small slice of the $6.4 trillion U.S. budget for this fiscal year. Lawmakers are not considering cuts to popular benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

McCarthy is facing intense pressure from his caucus to cut spending and achieve other conservative priorities. Several hardliners have threatened to oust him from his leadership role if he passes a spending bill that requires any Democratic votes to pass.

The House defeated a bill on agriculture funding by a 237-191 margin. Twenty-seven of McCarthy’s Republicans rejected it, mostly moderates in competitive districts who were worried about steep cuts to funding, as well as a provision limiting access to abortion medication.

Former President Donald Trump has taken to social media to push his congressional allies toward a shutdown.

McCarthy, for his part, suggested on Thursday that a shutdown could be avoided if Senate Democrats agreed to address border issues in their stopgap measure.

“I talked this morning to some Democratic senators over there that are more aligned with what we want to do. They want to do something about the border,” McCarthy told reporters in the U.S. Capitol.

“We’re trying to work to see, could we put some border provisions in that current Senate bill that would actually make things a lot better,” he said.

The House Freedom Caucus, home to the hardliners forcing McCarthy’s hand, in an open letter to him on Thursday demanded a timeline for passing the seven remaining appropriations bills and a plan to further reduce the top-line discretionary spending figure, among other questions.

“No Member of Congress can or should be expected to consider supporting a stop-gap funding measure without answers to these reasonable questions,” the letter, led by the group’s chair, Republican Representative Scott Perry, read.

‘ONE OPTION TO AVOID A SHUTDOWN’

The Senate measure has passed two procedural hurdles this week with strong bipartisan support.

“Congress has only one option – one option – to avoid a shutdown: bipartisanship,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Thursday. “With bipartisanship, we can responsibly fund the government and avoid the sharp and unnecessary pain for the American people and the economy that a shutdown will bring.”

Credit agencies have warned that brinkmanship and political polarization are harming the U.S. financial outlook. Moody’s, the last major ratings agency to rate the U.S. government “Aaa” with a stable outlook, said on Monday that a shutdown would harm the country’s credit rating.

Fitch, another major ratings agency, already downgraded the U.S. government to “AA+” after Congress flirted with defaulting on the nation’s debt earlier this year.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton and David Morgan, additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Jeff Mason; Editing by Scott Malone, Alistair Bell and Jonathan Oatis)

By Moira Warburton and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Democratic-led U.S. Senate forged ahead on Thursday with a bipartisan stopgap funding bill aimed at averting a fourth partial government shutdown in a decade, while the House began voting on partisan Republican spending bills with no chance of becoming law.

The divergent paths of the two chambers increased the odds that federal agencies will run out of money on Sunday, furloughing hundreds of thousands of federal workers and halting a wide range of services from economic data releases to nutrition benefits.

The House of Representatives passed three of four bills funding parts of the government, though the partisan bills would not alone prevent a shutdown, even if they could overcome strong opposition from Senate Democrats and become law.

The Senate earlier in the day had voted 76-22 to open debate on a stopgap bill known as a continuing resolution, or CR, which would extend federal spending until Nov. 17, and authorize roughly $6 billion each for domestic disaster response funding and aid to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia.

The Senate measure has already been rejected by Republicans, who control the House.

House Republicans, led by a small faction of hardline conservatives in the chamber they control by a 221-212 margin, have rejected spending levels for fiscal year 2024 set in a deal Speaker Kevin McCarthy negotiated with Biden in May.

The agreement included $1.59 trillion in discretionary spending in fiscal 2024. House Republicans are demanding another $120 billion in cuts, plus tougher legislation that would stop the flow of immigrants at the U.S. southern border with Mexico.

The funding fight focuses on a relatively small slice of the $6.4 trillion U.S. budget for this fiscal year. Lawmakers are not considering cuts to popular benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

McCarthy is facing intense pressure from his caucus to cut spending and achieve other conservative priorities. Several hardliners have threatened to oust him from his leadership role if he passes a spending bill that requires any Democratic votes to pass.

The House defeated a bill on agriculture funding by a 237-191 margin. Twenty-seven of McCarthy’s Republicans rejected it, mostly moderates in competitive districts who were worried about steep cuts to funding, as well as a provision limiting access to abortion medication.

Former President Donald Trump has taken to social media to push his congressional allies toward a shutdown.

McCarthy, for his part, suggested on Thursday that a shutdown could be avoided if Senate Democrats agreed to address border issues in their stopgap measure.

“I talked this morning to some Democratic senators over there that are more aligned with what we want to do. They want to do something about the border,” McCarthy told reporters in the U.S. Capitol.

“We’re trying to work to see, could we put some border provisions in that current Senate bill that would actually make things a lot better,” he said.

The House Freedom Caucus, home to the hardliners forcing McCarthy’s hand, in an open letter to him on Thursday demanded a timeline for passing the seven remaining appropriations bills and a plan to further reduce the top-line discretionary spending figure, among other questions.

“No Member of Congress can or should be expected to consider supporting a stop-gap funding measure without answers to these reasonable questions,” the letter, led by the group’s chair, Republican Representative Scott Perry, read.

‘ONE OPTION TO AVOID A SHUTDOWN’

The Senate measure has passed two procedural hurdles this week with strong bipartisan support.

“Congress has only one option – one option – to avoid a shutdown: bipartisanship,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Thursday. “With bipartisanship, we can responsibly fund the government and avoid the sharp and unnecessary pain for the American people and the economy that a shutdown will bring.”

Credit agencies have warned that brinkmanship and political polarization are harming the U.S. financial outlook. Moody’s, the last major ratings agency to rate the U.S. government “Aaa” with a stable outlook, said on Monday that a shutdown would harm the country’s credit rating.

Fitch, another major ratings agency, already downgraded the U.S. government to “AA+” after Congress flirted with defaulting on the nation’s debt earlier this year.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton and David Morgan, additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Jeff Mason; Editing by Scott Malone, Alistair Bell and Jonathan Oatis)

By Elida Moreno

PANAMA CITY (Reuters) – The number of people crossing the perilous Darien Gap linking Panama and Colombia has hit a record high of 400,000 in the year to September, official data showed, as migration to the United States intensified despite efforts to curb the flow.

More than half of those migrants were children and babies, Panama’s security ministry said in a statement, adding that September alone saw the number of crossings increase by a fifth compared to the previous month.

The year-to-date figure of 402,300 migrants is almost double the number for the whole of 2022.

The United Nations had estimated in April that the number of migrants for the entire year would be 400,000.

Most of the migrants traversing the dangerous stretch of jungle are Venezuelans, with others from Ecuador, Haiti and other countries, Panama’s security ministry has said.

Panama announced earlier this month measures to stop the increase in migration, including deporting more people with criminal records and a decrease in the number of days some tourists are allowed to stay in the country.

These measures follow a two-month program launched in April by the United States, Panama and Colombia to tackle undocumented immigration.

Costa Rica, another transit country for the migrants, declared a state of emergency earlier this week, and its President Rodrigo Chaves said he would visit the Darien Gap in early October in an effort to contain a migrant crisis.

The United States in May rolled out a new policy to deter illegal crossings, including deporting migrants and banning re-entry for five years, as the Biden administration grappled with migration at record highs.

The tougher measures drove the border-crossing rate down some 70% initially, but the number of migrants arriving at the U.S. border with Mexico has surged recently, suggesting the early deterrent effect is wearing off.

Some African and Cuban migrants and asylum seekers heading to the United States told Reuters they were flying into Nicaragua to bypass the perils of the Darien Gap.

(Reporting by Elida Moreno; Writing by Valentine Hilaire; editing by Miral Fahmy)

By Moira Warburton and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Democratic-led U.S. Senate forged ahead on Thursday with a bipartisan stopgap funding bill aimed at averting a fourth partial government shutdown in a decade, while the House began voting on partisan Republican spending bills with no chance of becoming law.

The divergent paths of the two chambers appeared to increase the odds that federal agencies will run out of money on Sunday, furloughing hundreds of thousands of federal workers and halting a wide range of services from economic data releases to nutrition benefits.

The House of Representatives voted 216-212 on a bill funding the State Department and other aspects of foreign affairs, the first in a series of four partisan appropriations bills that would not alone prevent a shutdown, even if they could overcome strong opposition from Senate Democrats and become law.

The Senate earlier in the day had voted 76-22 to open debate on a stopgap bill known as a continuing resolution, or CR, which would extend federal spending until Nov. 17, and authorize roughly $6 billion each for domestic disaster response funding and aid to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia.

The Senate measure has already been rejected by Republicans, who control the House.

House Republicans, led by a small faction of hardline conservatives in the chamber they control by a 221-212 margin, have rejected spending levels for fiscal year 2024 set in a deal Speaker Kevin McCarthy negotiated with Biden in May.

The agreement included $1.59 trillion in discretionary spending in fiscal 2024. House Republicans are demanding another $120 billion in cuts, plus tougher legislation that would stop the flow of immigrants at the U.S. southern border with Mexico.

The funding fight focuses on a relatively small slice of the $6.4 trillion U.S. budget for this fiscal year. Lawmakers are not considering cuts to popular benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

McCarthy is facing intense pressure from his caucus to achieve their goals. Several hardliners have threatened to oust him from his leadership role if he passes a spending bill that requires any Democratic votes to pass.

Former President Donald Trump has taken to social media to push his congressional allies toward a shutdown.

McCarthy, for his part, suggested on Thursday that a shutdown could be avoided if Senate Democrats agreed to address border issues in their stopgap measure.

“I talked this morning to some Democratic senators over there that are more aligned with what we want to do. They want to do something about the border,” McCarthy told reporters in the U.S. Capitol.

“We’re trying to work to see, could we put some border provisions in that current Senate bill that would actually make things a lot better,” he said.

The House Freedom Caucus, home to the hardliners forcing McCarthy’s hand, in an open letter to him on Thursday demanded a timeline for passing the seven remaining appropriations bills and a plan to further reduce the top-line discretionary spending figure, among other questions.

“No Member of Congress can or should be expected to consider supporting a stop-gap funding measure without answers to these reasonable questions,” the letter, led by the group’s chair, Republican Representative Scott Perry, read.

‘ONE OPTION TO AVOID A SHUTDOWN’

The Senate measure has passed two procedural hurdles this week with strong bipartisan support.

“Congress has only one option – one option – to avoid a shutdown: bipartisanship,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Thursday. “With bipartisanship, we can responsibly fund the government and avoid the sharp and unnecessary pain for the American people and the economy that a shutdown will bring.”

Credit agencies have warned that brinkmanship and political polarization are harming the U.S. financial outlook. Moody’s, the last major ratings agency to rate the U.S. government “Aaa” with a stable outlook, said on Monday that a shutdown would harm the country’s credit rating.

Fitch, another major ratings agency, already downgraded the U.S. government to “AA+” after Congress flirted with defaulting on the nation’s debt earlier this year.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton and David Morgan, additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Jeff Mason; Editing by Scott Malone, Alistair Bell and Jonathan Oatis)

By Moira Warburton and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Democratic-led U.S. Senate forged ahead on Thursday with a bipartisan stopgap funding bill aimed at averting a fourth partial government shutdown in a decade, while the House began voting on partisan Republican spending bills with no chance of becoming law.

The divergent paths of the two chambers appeared to increase the odds that federal agencies will run out of money on Sunday, furloughing hundreds of thousands of federal workers and halting a wide range of services from economic data releases to nutrition benefits.

The House of Representatives voted 216-212 on a bill funding the State Department and other aspects of foreign affairs, the first in a series of four partisan appropriations bills that would not alone prevent a shutdown, even if they could overcome strong opposition from Senate Democrats and become law.

The Senate earlier in the day had voted 76-22 to open debate on a stopgap bill known as a continuing resolution, or CR, which would extend federal spending until Nov. 17, and authorize roughly $6 billion each for domestic disaster response funding and aid to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia.

The Senate measure has already been rejected by Republicans, who control the House.

House Republicans, led by a small faction of hardline conservatives in the chamber they control by a 221-212 margin, have rejected spending levels for fiscal year 2024 set in a deal Speaker Kevin McCarthy negotiated with Biden in May.

The agreement included $1.59 trillion in discretionary spending in fiscal 2024. House Republicans are demanding another $120 billion in cuts, plus tougher legislation that would stop the flow of immigrants at the U.S. southern border with Mexico.

The funding fight focuses on a relatively small slice of the $6.4 trillion U.S. budget for this fiscal year. Lawmakers are not considering cuts to popular benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

McCarthy is facing intense pressure from his caucus to achieve their goals. Several hardliners have threatened to oust him from his leadership role if he passes a spending bill that requires any Democratic votes to pass.

Former President Donald Trump has taken to social media to push his congressional allies toward a shutdown.

McCarthy, for his part, suggested on Thursday that a shutdown could be avoided if Senate Democrats agreed to address border issues in their stopgap measure.

“I talked this morning to some Democratic senators over there that are more aligned with what we want to do. They want to do something about the border,” McCarthy told reporters in the U.S. Capitol.

“We’re trying to work to see, could we put some border provisions in that current Senate bill that would actually make things a lot better,” he said.

The House Freedom Caucus, home to the hardliners forcing McCarthy’s hand, in an open letter to him on Thursday demanded a timeline for passing the seven remaining appropriations bills and a plan to further reduce the top-line discretionary spending figure, among other questions.

“No Member of Congress can or should be expected to consider supporting a stop-gap funding measure without answers to these reasonable questions,” the letter, led by the group’s chair, Republican Representative Scott Perry, read.

‘ONE OPTION TO AVOID A SHUTDOWN’

The Senate measure has passed two procedural hurdles this week with strong bipartisan support.

“Congress has only one option – one option – to avoid a shutdown: bipartisanship,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Thursday. “With bipartisanship, we can responsibly fund the government and avoid the sharp and unnecessary pain for the American people and the economy that a shutdown will bring.”

Credit agencies have warned that brinkmanship and political polarization are harming the U.S. financial outlook. Moody’s, the last major ratings agency to rate the U.S. government “Aaa” with a stable outlook, said on Monday that a shutdown would harm the country’s credit rating.

Fitch, another major ratings agency, already downgraded the U.S. government to “AA+” after Congress flirted with defaulting on the nation’s debt earlier this year.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton and David Morgan, additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Jeff Mason; Editing by Scott Malone, Alistair Bell and Jonathan Oatis)

By Moira Warburton and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Democratic-led U.S. Senate forged ahead on Thursday with a bipartisan stopgap funding bill aimed at averting a fourth partial government shutdown in a decade, while the House began voting on partisan Republican spending bills with no chance of becoming law.

The divergent paths of the two chambers appeared to increase the odds that federal agencies will run out of money on Sunday, furloughing hundreds of thousands of federal workers and halting a wide range of services from economic data releases to nutrition benefits.

The House of Representatives voted 216-212 on a bill funding the State Department and other aspects of foreign affairs, the first in a series of four partisan appropriations bills that would not alone prevent a shutdown, even if they could overcome strong opposition from Senate Democrats and become law.

The Senate earlier in the day had voted 76-22 to open debate on a stopgap bill known as a continuing resolution, or CR, which would extend federal spending until Nov. 17, and authorize roughly $6 billion each for domestic disaster response funding and aid to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia.

The Senate measure has already been rejected by Republicans, who control the House.

House Republicans, led by a small faction of hardline conservatives in the chamber they control by a 221-212 margin, have rejected spending levels for fiscal year 2024 set in a deal Speaker Kevin McCarthy negotiated with Biden in May.

The agreement included $1.59 trillion in discretionary spending in fiscal 2024. House Republicans are demanding another $120 billion in cuts, plus tougher legislation that would stop the flow of immigrants at the U.S. southern border with Mexico.

The funding fight focuses on a relatively small slice of the $6.4 trillion U.S. budget for this fiscal year. Lawmakers are not considering cuts to popular benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

McCarthy is facing intense pressure from his caucus to achieve their goals. Several hardliners have threatened to oust him from his leadership role if he passes a spending bill that requires any Democratic votes to pass.

Former President Donald Trump has taken to social media to push his congressional allies toward a shutdown.

McCarthy, for his part, suggested on Thursday that a shutdown could be avoided if Senate Democrats agreed to address border issues in their stopgap measure.

“I talked this morning to some Democratic senators over there that are more aligned with what we want to do. They want to do something about the border,” McCarthy told reporters in the U.S. Capitol.

“We’re trying to work to see, could we put some border provisions in that current Senate bill that would actually make things a lot better,” he said.

The House Freedom Caucus, home to the hardliners forcing McCarthy’s hand, in an open letter to him on Thursday demanded a timeline for passing the seven remaining appropriations bills and a plan to further reduce the top-line discretionary spending figure, among other questions.

“No Member of Congress can or should be expected to consider supporting a stop-gap funding measure without answers to these reasonable questions,” the letter, led by the group’s chair, Republican Representative Scott Perry, read.

‘ONE OPTION TO AVOID A SHUTDOWN’

The Senate measure has passed two procedural hurdles this week with strong bipartisan support.

“Congress has only one option – one option – to avoid a shutdown: bipartisanship,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Thursday. “With bipartisanship, we can responsibly fund the government and avoid the sharp and unnecessary pain for the American people and the economy that a shutdown will bring.”

Credit agencies have warned that brinkmanship and political polarization are harming the U.S. financial outlook. Moody’s, the last major ratings agency to rate the U.S. government “Aaa” with a stable outlook, said on Monday that a shutdown would harm the country’s credit rating.

Fitch, another major ratings agency, already downgraded the U.S. government to “AA+” after Congress flirted with defaulting on the nation’s debt earlier this year.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton and David Morgan, additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Jeff Mason; Editing by Scott Malone, Alistair Bell and Jonathan Oatis)